I request that you review and have my reply translated into English in exquisitely polite expressions

(make minor corrections yourself; we shall telephone about major ones). Type it on my letterhead on the typewriter and send it to me for signature.

Dear Mr. Macdonald!*

I am extremely grateful to you for your courteous letter and for your most flattering assessment of how you were received. I have heard from comrade Krasin an extraordinarily high evaluation of your outstanding role and exceptional abilities in matters of industry and commerce. All the more do I value your practical proposal in this sphere for us. I deeply regret that illness does not permit me to receive you; the doctors have forbidden me even the slightest conversation. I shall consider it a pleasant duty to write a letter to comrades Chicherin and Lezava so that they direct special attention and assign the best experts for the speediest business-like and competent examination of your proposals, which are of high importance to us and of profound interest to us practically.

I hope that you will be so kind as to excuse the delay in my reply, occasioned by my illness, and I request that you accept the assurances of deep respect from your obedient servant.

2-2-22

copies

First published in 1959

in the Lenin Collection XXXVI

Printed from the typewritten